For its debut in Nashville, where Waymo has been testing vehicles for several months, Waymo says that Lyft will initially be handling fleet management only, such as vehicle cleaning and maintenance, via the Lyft subsidiary Flexdrive. As Waymo scales up service, riders will eventually be able to use the Lyft app to summon an autonomous vehicle, too, Waymo says, though the company wouldn’t specify when riders could expect that to take place.
A Lyft spokesperson described the effort as a “multi-year partnership” and said that both companies “have ambitions” to eventually partner together in more cities.
All of Waymo’s partnerships have looked a little different thus far. In Atlanta and Austin, where Waymo is working with Uber, riders can only get a Waymo via the Uber app. (Waymo has also been available in Phoenix on the Uber app since 2023, though that partnership is smaller)
Over the last year, Waymo has become the clear frontrunner in the race to deploy autonomous vehicles around the country. The company surpassed 100 million fully autonomous miles this summer, and earlier this week, Waymo said it had received an initial permit from the San Francisco airport to start doing test rides to and from the airport—a first for any ride-hail company.
As far as which partnerships will end up working best for Waymo, it appears the company is still sorting that out. When asked by Fortune at a conference last month what Waymo has learned from its various partnerships thus far, one of the company’s engineering executives said it was too soon to tell.
